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Here's an idea of something like what the plot might turn out to be (although I was thinking of a TV series when I wrote it down) from my OP to this thread:

I didn't say you know the local messengers everywhere/on all planes. I'm pretty sure I've already said this too, but you (meaning your PC) know the local messengers in the places where you (the player) use the feature. That's it, and it isn't nonsensical. Seriously? It makes perfect sense. It's...

I have 100% chance of knowing my friend in Barcelona whom I've known since we went to high school together. When I visit Barcelona there will be no chance of me not knowing her.

Are you saying you allow the player to ask if they can use their feature? Wow, that's so generous of you! ;) But seriously, how would it be "extra work" for the DM to scrap the parts of what's been written about the port that contradict what the player asserts and which (obviously) haven't been...

I don't think we're talking about the same thing. I was talking about the player having to ask the DM questions about details they made up about the port, and my question was why the DM was being coy. Why not share the awesome fiction you've invented with your players, so they can make informed...

Bible, recovering from her speechlessness, over-awed momentarily by the giant's enormity, steps forward, giving a short, polite bow, and addresses him in the most formal Giant speech she can muster, ::I yam Bible, my lord prinsk, Reeve of the humble village of Steelport which for many a year has...

It’s unclear what you’re saying here. Are you saying there’s no problem with the feature working under the conditions I described in my post? If so, then you should agree that the “problem” being talked about for many pages now in this thread is not a problem with any particular background...

Prove that the "problem" ever existed anywhere but in your head. That's not a rules problem. It's a social contract problem. Players don't need rules to tell them they can break the social contract. What specific problems are you talking about here? :)

Advocating? No, I think everyone should play how they like. The point I made up-thread is that I'm incredulous that DMs in general are prepping a level of detail in the setting that would lead to a conflict with the kinds of details the background features invite the player to invent.

Going back and reading your post, it seems you mean something like making the ship stop where the character thinks it does, and I'm still not following because it's trivially true that the character thinking something does not make that thing true in the fiction. What makes it true in the...

You don't need a background to have skills, feats, languages, or tools, and I can have my character behave any way I want. I don't need a background for that. I like the 2014 backgrounds because they give the player something you can't get anywhere else in the game.

Thanks for clarifying what you meant by narrative control. As you can see from my clarification of what I was calling dysfunctional, it had pretty much nothing to do with that or with anything else in the rest of your post.

I don't know. You tell me. It's unclear from your description how any of this is being established in the game's fiction. The point of your example seems to be if you force me to play in your railroad then I'm not allowed to make any meaningful decisions for my character, which isn't surprising...

The highly improbable happens all the time, so what does probability have to do with logic, consistency, and interconnectivity with reference to setting details? I also don't see how this tangent relates to the timing of when setting details are made up by RPG participants.

Alright, now we're getting somewhere! Umm, go back and re-read what we just agreed on. The features are written with that in mind, so there shouldn't be the kind of mismatch in expectations you describe. My point was that having a more predictable outcome which is less subject to DM judgment...

Other than the DM is in control of the Dark Powers, this tells me nothing about how it’s supposed to operate at the table. I’m sure the PCs aren’t the only people the DP have ever allowed into Ravenloft, and presumably they’ve also let some of those people out again who could have brought...

Of course it's possible for people to exist of which one has never heard. That isn't in doubt! But that doesn't mean no one can ever have heard of people who live in places they haven't been, so I don't know why you think I would accept that kind of reasoning. It's also quite possible to learn...

So not only are there “corrupt caravan masters” among the Vistani (as I assume there must be, yeah?) but potentially also “local messengers”. And although it’s contentious to say they “can deliver messages for you”, there seems to be some potential for that too vis-à-vis their purported ability...

What you describe here as the feature “always working” is the player saying their PC knows someone, but the player isn’t “always” saying that. Such play would quickly be met with groaning and eye rolling from the other participants. There’s a social contract that governs such things with varying...

Setting aside the fact that chance meetings do occur, why are they being brought into this? Presumably, if you know someone, you have a decent idea of where to look for them, yeah?